Successful treatment of resistant hypertension secondary to catecholamine-secreting glomus tumor

The patient is an 86-year-old female with previously well-controlled hypertension, prior ischemic stroke, pulmonary embolism, coronary artery disease post coronary artery bypass graft, chronic kidney disease stage 3 and giant cell arteritis on low-dose prednisone who was referred to the nephrology clinic for uncontrolled hypertension. Her hypertension was diagnosed 20 years ago and had generally been well managed with a single agent. In recent years, she developed hoarseness and left-sided sensorineural hearing loss. An audiogram demonstrated moderate to severe bilateral sensorineural hearing loss as well as left-sided conductive hearing loss. Nasopharyngoscopy revealed paralysis of the left vocal fold. Subsequent magnetic resonance imaging of the brain showed an enhancing mass centered at the left jugular foramen with characteristics consistent with a glomus tumor (Figure 1). Given the location of the mass, operative management was not pursued, and she underwent gamma knife radiation. Subsequent imaging showed stability of the mass size.